Explode
by Wynjara
Summary: Pomfrey muses on the Wizarding World's savior's state of mind.


_Just a little one-shot thingy that popped into my head.  Pomfrey's POV, may be some minor discrepancies with the books, but I can't find them all right now to check._

          I've been the matron here for too many years, but I've never seen anyone like this boy.  Even in the darkest days of Voldemort's reign, when Severus was spying daily for us, I didn't see a single individual as often, in such horrid conditions, as one Harry James Potter.

          I remember watching him being Sorted, looking far too small for his age and certainly nothing like a hero should look.  The Hat took quite a bit of time with him, and to this day I wonder what it was deciding under there.  I have my suspicions now, after seeing some of the scrapes the boy has gotten into and the rules he blatantly ignores, that he may have been heading for Slytherin.  Not that I think the boy is evil, anymore than I think Peeves is going to invite me to tea tomorrow, but that is only the perceived definition of a Slytherin.  Harry is smart and cunning, willing to do anything he needs to in order to achieve his goal.  He could have been a Hufflepuff, for that matter- most of his traumas seem to come from protecting someone.

          Whatever the other choices may have been, Potter certainly belongs in Gryffindor.  His bravery outruns his common sense at times and will probably get him killed some day, but I expected no different from James Potter's offspring.  James was in here often enough without an insane megalomaniac after him.

          Harry's been to me enough times with simple Quidditch injuries.  Of course, when I say simple, it's a relative term.  The average Seeker does not come in to have bones re-grown after being attacked by a Bludger that was charmed by a house elf to attack him.  The average Seeker does not later arrange for that elf to be freed, either.

          Your basic, everyday Quidditch player does not find himself under my care after being set upon by Dementors during a game, either.  Bad enough that they got to him on the train in, but with each interaction the visions he saw grew progressively worse.  There isn't enough chocolate in the world to erase the memory of your parents' deaths.

          Looking back now, it's obvious that the boy has never suffered 'just' an accident to land himself here.  Once he had an incompetent fool magically remove the bones from his arm, making recovery that much harder.  Once he had the cheer sucked out of him, sending him to the ground.  And those were only the Quidditch related injuries.

          I remember him lying still and pale after nearly dying in an abandoned third floor corridor.  My heart literally skipped a beat at the sight of the Headmaster with the drained boy in his arms, looking far more tired than I have ever seen Albus Dumbledore before, the twinkle missing from his eyes.  Young Mr. Weasley joined him under my care for a short time, but his injuries were far simpler to heal.  Broken bones, contusions, those I understand.  My classes never covered how to heal damage incurred by the activation of ancient magic and a love protection.

          He seemed alright after that, which worried me.  Whether it had hit him or not, he had just helped a man die.  Granted, the world is a far better place without that creature in it, but an eleven year old boy should not have that burden on him.  I half suspected Albus of wiping parts of Harry's memory, but I have never been able to prove it, and wouldn't know what to do if I did.

          His second year and that fiasco in the Chamber of Secrets.  I saw him when he emerged, covered in blood and other substances I would rather not identify, carrying a gory sword.  Heard the story second hand from the Headmaster, and spent that night crying for the boy.  He'd had the entire school facing off against him the whole year, convinced he was evil because he happened to be multilingual, then had to watch his friends and acquaintances fell victim to an unknown menace in the school.  He'd been put under my care for that night, but Fawkes had taken care of most of the damage- physically, anyway.

          That boy should have been hysterical, by anyone's standards.  In one night he'd thought a friend dead, nearly been crushed by a rock fall, fought against the living memory of a teenage Voldemort, killed a basilisk, and almost died.  And yet there he was, sitting on the edge of one of my beds, asking when I thought I could de-petrify the victims.  I expected some sort of nervous breakdown, or tears at least.  I got neither.

          In his third year he dealt with the knowledge that Voldemort wasn't the only dark wizard out to kill him.  I saw him chafe under the restrictions people placed on him while the world sought the infamous Sirius Black.  Lupin kept me informed that year of Harry's progress with the Dementor boggarts, so that I'd be on hand should anything go seriously wrong.  Harry dealt well with those sessions, almost too well.  I have never figured out how he handles hearing what he does.

          The events at the end of the year were chaotic at best, and I don't think even Albus was able to keep track of all of them.  I'm certain that he doesn't know I saw him send Ms. Granger and Harry back in time to do- something.  I haven't figured out why they needed so much time, nor how they got to the room they held Black in, but I'm positive they gave him the means to escape.  I'll take that secret to my grave.

Being told that your school is hosting the Tri-Wizard Tournament is surely the most frightening and annoying news a school nurse can hear.  It always means injuries of varying severity, both to the participants and any audience members or judges too foolish to stay well out of harm's way.  To this day I can't believe they let children go up against full-grown dragons.  I don't care how well they've studied, or how good their education, they're still children.  Many- most- adults couldn't do it.

If only that had been the worst of it, though.  The third task…I still have nightmares sometimes, and the only things they're based off of is hearsay.  I shudder to think what Harry's dreams are like.  That maze was bad enough, but what he found at the end…

I've heard that Potter hates Portkeys now, and it's certainly not surprising.  They're not my favorite means of transportation, either, but having one bring you to Voldemort's return would make anything unpleasant to say the least.  Harry came back from that with physical injuries, yes, but even against the Cruciatus it was the mental damage that I feared most.  He'd seen a fellow student die, killed just because the two were determined to be fair.  I can't help but wonder sometimes, how different things would be now if Cedric had taken the cup alone.  I wonder, and I hate myself for it.  Diggory's death affected everyone.  Harry wasn't even given a chance to recover from that before nearly dying again, this time at the hands of a Polyjuice imposter.  Add in speaking to phantoms of his parents and it seems to me that it should add up to severe emotional attacks.  But once again, he simply allowed me to treat him, barely reacting even when he spoke to Cedric's parents.  I believe he found someone to give his reward monies to; I know he did not keep them.  It was in his eyes that this was blood money, tainted for him by the memory of death and pain.

I never saw outright the damage done by that twit Umbridge, but I know now that it was there all along.  Had I seen it earlier, well, let's say that you should never anger a mediwitch.  We know how to put your bodies back together; we can take them apart just as easily.  And we know what hurts most.

Still, even with that beastly woman running rampant, even with the Quidditch ban she put on him, even with those private lessons in heavens-know-what that Snape was giving him, the worst of his year was just at the end.  I wasn't privy to the entire story, but I know that it culminated in his godfather (who, it seems, was innocent all along) dying.

Harry blamed himself.  I imagine it had something to do with those lessons, and with the Dark Lord, but I'll probably never know.  The injuries sustained by the other students who joined him in his foolhardy raid were injured to varying degrees as well, but none of them so badly that I was in trouble.  Harry, on the other hand…

He destroyed Albus' office.  I've heard bits of this from the Headmaster himself, under strict medic-patient confidentiality.  While I was angry at Albus for what he did, I can understand that he truly thought it was for the best.  

Many wizards don't think of Albus Dumbledore as being human, fallible.  It's easy to fall into the trap of believing public opinion, even about yourself.  The extent of his error hit him hard.

The students are gone now, headed home for their holidays.  I know that Harry hates this time of year- I know that his relatives are rather less than gleeful about their guardianship.  Perhaps it was in this overbearing environment that he learned not to give in to emotions, learned to hide within himself.  I remember the laughing baby he once was, and see the silent teen he has become, and I worry.  I fear for the day his emotions find themselves escaping the locks he has placed upon them.  I fear for the world that day.

And I don't doubt that it will come.  No one can remain frozen forever.  Even our dear stony Severus lets out his anger and fear, lashing out at his students in fits of frustration.  Perhaps not the healthiest outlet, but far better than letting it fester inside.  Harry does not have this.  Even having seen the damage he did to the Headmaster's office, I know that he holds far too much inside.  Anger can become energy, become power, and that power is not easily controlled, just like the emotion itself.

No one should see or experience what Harry Potter has.  Pain cuts deep channels into the human psyche, ones not easily healed.  With his experiences, the damages he's received every day for at least fifteen years multiply, and spread, until there is room for nothing but the anger, and fear, and hurt.

One day, it will explode.  Heaven help us all.


End file.
